The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes

Polynesia Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...

, as well as much of

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, ...

and

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...

. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages are spoken by only two million people. The largest individual Oceanic languages are Eastern Fijian with over 600,000 speakers, and Samoan with an estimated 400,000 speakers. The Gilbertese (Kiribati), Tongan, Tahitian, Māori, Western Fijian and Tolai ( Gazelle Peninsula) languages each have over 100,000 speakers. The

common ancestor Common descent is a concept in evolutionary biology applicable when one species is the ancestor of two or more species later in time. All living beings are in fact descendants of a unique ancestor commonly referred to as the last universal comm ...

which is reconstructed for this group of languages is called

Proto-Oceanic Proto-Oceanic (abbr. ''POc'') is a proto-language that historical linguists since Otto Dempwolff have reconstructed as the hypothetical common ancestor of the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Oceanic is a descendant ...

(abbr. "POc").

Classification

The Oceanic languages were first shown to be a

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in his ...

by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1896 and, besides

Malayo-Polynesian The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeast ...

, they are the only established large branch of Austronesian languages. Grammatically, they have been strongly influenced by the

Papuan languages The Papuan languages are the non-Austronesian and non- Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogra ...

of northern

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

, but they retain a remarkably large amount of Austronesian vocabulary.

Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002)

According to Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002), Oceanic languages often form linkages with each other. Linkages are formed when languages emerged historically from an earlier

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...

. The linguistic innovations shared by adjacent languages define a chain of intersecting subgroups (a ''linkage''), for which no distinct

proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unatte ...

can be reconstructed. Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002) propose three primary groups of Oceanic languages: * Admiralties linkage: languages of

Manus Island Manus Island is part of Manus Province in northern Papua New Guinea and is the largest of the Admiralty Islands. It is the fifth-largest island in Papua New Guinea, with an area of , measuring around . Manus Island is covered in rugged jungles ...

, its offshore islands, and small islands to the west. * Western Oceanic (WOc) linkage: languages of the north coast of

Irian Jaya New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

(excluding the Admiralties) and the western

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its ca ...

. West Oceanic is made up of three or four sub-linkages and families: :*? Sarmi–Jayapura linkage: maybe part of the North New Guinea linkage? :* North New Guinea linkage: consists of languages of the north coast of New Guinea, east from

Jayapura Jayapura (formerly Dutch: ''Hollandia'') is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of Papua. It is situated on the northern coast of New Guinea island and covers an area of . The city borders the Pacific Ocean and Yos Sud ...

. :* Meso-Melanesian linkage: consists of languages of the

Bismarck Archipelago The Bismarck Archipelago (, ) is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about 50,000 square km. History The first inhabitants o ...

and

. :* Papuan Tip linkage: consists of languages of the tip of the

Papuan Peninsula The Papuan Peninsula, also known as the Bird's Tail Peninsula, is a large peninsula in Papua New Guinea, southeast of the city of Lae, that makes up the southeastern portion of the island of New Guinea. The peninsula is the easternmost extent of t ...

. * Central–Eastern Oceanic (CEOc) linkage: nearly all languages of

Oceania Oceania (, , ) is a region, geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern Hemisphere, Eastern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of ...

not included in the Admiralties and Western Oceanic. Central–Eastern consists of four or five subgroups: :* Southeast Solomonic linkage: of the South East Solomon Islands. :*( Utupua–Vanikoro linkage: later removed to Temotu languages). :* Southern Oceanic linkage: consists of languages of New Caledonia and

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...

. :* Central Oceanic linkage: consists of the

Polynesian languages The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family. There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austro ...

, and the languages of Fiji. :* Micronesian linkage. The "residues" (as they are called by Lynch, Ross, & Crowley), which do not fit into the three groups above, but are still classified as Oceanic are: * St. Matthias Islands linkage. *?

Yapese language Yapese is a language spoken by the people on the island of Yap (Federated States of Micronesia). It belongs to the Austronesian languages, more specifically to the Oceanic branch of that family. It has been difficult to classify it further, b ...

: of the island of Yap. Perhaps part of the Admiralties? Ross & Næss (2007) removed Utupua–Vanikoro, from Central–Eastern Oceanic, to a new primary branch of Oceanic: * Temotu linkage, named after the

Temotu Province Temotu (or Te Motu, literally "the island" in Polynesian) is the easternmost province of Solomon Islands. The province was formerly known as Santa Cruz Islands Province. It consists, essentially, of two chains of islands which run parallel t ...

of the

. Blench (2014) considers Utupua and Vanikoro to be two separate branches that are both non-Austronesian.

Ross, Pawley, & Osmond (2016)

Ross, Pawley, & Osmond (2016) propose the following revised rake-like classification of Oceanic, with 9 primary branches.Ross, Malcolm; Pawley, Andrew; Osmond, Meredith (eds)
''The lexicon of Proto Oceanic: The culture and environment of ancestral Oceanic society''
Volume 5
People: body and mind
2016. Asia-Pacific Linguistics (A-PL) 28. ;Oceanic *

Admiralty languages The Admiralty Islands languages are a group of some thirty Oceanic languages The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia, as well as m ...

* St Matthias languages (

Mussau Mussau Island is the largest island of St Matthias Islands, Papua New Guinea, at . It is currently part of the New Ireland Province of Papua New Guinea. The island is a noted Biodiversity hotspot with pristine primeval Rainforest Rainforest ...

and

Tench The tench or doctor fish (''Tinca tinca'') is a fresh- and brackish-water fish of the order Cypriniformes found throughout Eurasia from Western Europe including the British Isles east into Asia as far as the Ob and Yenisei Rivers. It is als ...

) * Western Oceanic linkage ** Meso-Melanesian linkage **New Guinea Oceanic linkage *** North New Guinea linkage *** Papuan Tip languages *

Temotu languages The Temotu languages, named after Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands, are a branch of Oceanic languages proposed in Ross & Næss (2007) to unify the Reefs – Santa Cruz languages with Utupua and Vanikoro, each a group of three related langua ...

Southeast Solomonic languages The family of Southeast Solomonic languages forms a branch of the Oceanic languages. It consists of some 26 languages covering the South East Solomon Islands, from the tip of Santa Isabel to Makira. The fact that there is little diversity amongs ...

* Southern Oceanic linkage ** North Vanuatu linkage **Nuclear Southern Oceanic linkage *** Central Vanuatu linkage *** South Vanuatu languages *** Loyalties-New Caledonia languages *

Micronesian languages The twenty Micronesian languages form a family of Oceanic languages. Micronesian languages are known for their lack of plain labial consonants; they have instead two series, palatalized and labio-velarized labials. Languages According to Jackso ...

Central Pacific languages The family of Central Pacific or Central Oceanic languages, also known as Fijian–Polynesian, are a branch of the Oceanic languages The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by spea ...

**Western Central Pacific linkage ***

Rotuman language Rotuman, also referred to as ''Rotunan'', ''Rutuman'' or ''Fäeag Rotuạm'' (citation form: ''Faega Rotuma''), is an Austronesian language spoken by the indigenous people of the South Pacific island group of Rotuma, an island with a Polynesian ...

*** Western Fijian languages **Eastern Central Pacific linkage *** Eastern Fijian languages ***

Non-Austronesian languages

Roger Blench Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and wor ...

(2014)Blench, Roger. 2014.
Lapita Canoes and Their Multi-Ethnic Crews: Might Marginal Austronesian Languages Be Non-Austronesian?
' Paper presented at the Workshop on the Languages of Papua 3. 20-24 January 2014, Manokwari, West Papua, Indonesia. argues that many languages conventionally classified as Oceanic are in fact non-Austronesian (or " Papuan", which is a geographic rather genetic grouping), including

Utupua Utupua is an island in the Santa Cruz Islands, located 66 km to the Southeast of the main Santa Cruz group, between Vanikoro and Santa Cruz proper ( Nendo Island). This island belongs administratively to the Temotu Province of the Solom ...

and

Vanikoro Vanikoro (sometimes wrongly named ''Vanikolo'') is an island in the Santa Cruz group, located to the Southeast of the main Santa Cruz group. It is part of the Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands. The name ''Vanikoro'' is always used as thou ...

. Blench doubts that Utupua and Vanikoro are closely related, and thus should not be grouped together. Since each of the three Utupua and three Vanikoro languages are highly distinct from each other, Blench doubts that these languages had diversified on the islands of Utupua and Vanikoro, but had rather migrated to the islands from elsewhere. According to Blench, historically this was due to the

Lapita The Lapita culture is the name given to a Neolithic Austronesian people and their material culture, who settled Island Melanesia via a seaborne migration at around 1600 to 500 BCE. They are believed to have originated from the northern Philipp ...

demographic expansion consisting of both Austronesian and non-Austronesian settlers migrating from the Lapita homeland in the

to various islands further to the east. Other languages traditionally classified as Oceanic that Blench (2014) suspects are in fact non-Austronesian include the Kaulong language of West New Britain, which has a

Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, which is by far the largest branch (by current speakers) of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Malayo-Polynesian is ancestral to all Austronesi ...

vocabulary retention rate of only 5%, and languages of the Loyalty Islands that are spoken just to the north of New Caledonia. Blench (2014) proposes that languages classified as: *''Austronesian, but perhaps actually non-Austronesian'' are spoken in northern Vanuatu and southern Vanuatu ( North Vanuatu languages and South Vanuatu languages). *''Austronesian, but may have experienced bilingualism with non-Austronesian'' are spoken in central Vanuatu and New Caledonia ( Central Vanuatu languages and New Caledonian languages). *''non-Austronesian, with some other languages traditionally classified as Austronesian may perhaps actually be non-Austronesian'' are spoken in the

and

New Britain New Britain ( tpi, Niu Briten) is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea (or with an island hop of Umboi the D ...

(various Meso-Melanesian languages).

Word order

Word order in Oceanic languages is highly diverse, and is distributed in the following geographic regions (Lynch, Ross, & Crowley 2002:49). * Subject–verb–object:

Admiralty Islands The Admiralty Islands are an archipelago group of 18 islands in the Bismarck Archipelago, to the north of New Guinea in the South Pacific Ocean. These are also sometimes called the Manus Islands, after the largest island. These rainforest-co ...

, most of Markham Valley, Siasi Islands, most of

, New Ireland, some parts of

Bougainville Island Bougainville Island ( Tok Pisin: ''Bogenvil'') is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, which is part of Papua New Guinea. It was previously the main landmass in the German Empire-associated North Solomons. Its land area ...

, most parts of the southeast

, most parts of

, some parts of New Caledonia, most of

* Subject–object–verb: central and southeast

, some parts of Markham Valley,

Madang Madang (old German name: ''Friedrich-Wilhelmshafen'') is the capital of Madang Province and is a town with a population of 27,420 (in 2005) on the north coast of Papua New Guinea. It was first settled by the Germans in the 19th century. Hist ...

coast,

Wewak Wewak is the capital of the East Sepik province of Papua New Guinea. It is on the northern coast of the island of New Guinea. It is the largest town between Madang and Jayapura. It is the see city (seat) of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wewak. ...

coast, Sarmi coast, a few parts of Bougainville, some parts of

* Verb–subject–object:

New Georgia New Georgia, with an area of , is the largest of the islands in Western Province, Solomon Islands, and the 200th-largest island in the world. Geography New Georgia island is located in the New Georgia Group, an archipelago including most ...

, some parts of Santa Ysabel Island, much of

, Yap * Verb–object–subject:

Fijian language Fijian (') is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken by some 350,000–450,000 ethnic Fijians as a native language. The 2013 Constitution established Fijian as an official language of Fiji, along with English and Fi ...

Anejom language Anejom̃ or Aneityum (also spelled ''Anejom'', and formerly ''Aneiteum'', ''Aneityumese'') is an Oceanic language spoken by 900 people () on Aneityum Island, Vanuatu. It is the only indigenous language of Aneityum. Classification Anejom̃ is ...

Loyalty Islands The Loyalty Islands Province (French ''Province des îles Loyauté'') is one of three administrative subdivisions of New Caledonia encompassing the Loyalty Island (french: Îles Loyauté) archipelago in the Pacific, which are located northeast o ...

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

, many parts of New Caledonia, Nggela *Object-initial: only two, Äiwoo ( object-verb-subject) and Tobati ( object-subject-verb) *

Topic-prominent language A topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its syntax to emphasize the topic–comment structure of the sentence. The term is best known in American linguistics from Charles N. Li and Sandra Thompson, who distinguished topic-promine ...

: much of

, Choiseul Island, some parts of Santa Ysabel Island

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Authority control Languages of Oceania